John McCain’S [NEOCON, HOTHEAD ] Foreign Policy Vision - Amy Goodman

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/26/a_century_in_iraq_replacing_un

March 26, 2008
Mccainiraq

A Century in Iraq, Replacing UN with "League of Democracies," Rogue
State Rollback? A Look at John McCain´s Foreign Policy Vision

We speak with investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss about Senator
John McCain´s vision for foreign policy. "McCain is drawing up plans
for a new set of global institutions," Dreyfuss writes, "from a
potent covert operations unit to a `League of Democracies´ that can
bypass the balky United Nations, from an expanded NATO that will bump
up against Russian interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus to a
revived US unilateralism that will engage in `rogue state rollback´
against his version of the `axis of evil.´ In all, it´s a new
apparatus designed to carry the `war on terror´ deep into the twenty-
first century." [includes rush transcript]

Robert Dreyfuss, investigative reporter and contributing editor at
The Nation magazine. He is author of Devil´s Game: How the United
States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.
Rush Transcript
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    * Hothead McCain

AMY GOODMAN: Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain
might have attracted some ridicule last week when he falsely insisted
Iran is training and supplying al-Qaeda in Iraq. McCain corrected
himself after independent Senator Joseph Lieberman stepped in and
whispered in his ear.

      SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Well, it´s common knowledge and has been
reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and
receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That´s
well known. And it´s unfortunate. So I believe that we are succeeding
in Iraq. The situation is dramatically improved. But I also want to
emphasize time and again al-Qaeda is on the run, but they are not
defeated.

      SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN: [whispering] You said that the Iranians
were training al-Qaeda. I think you meant they´re training in
extremist terrorism.

      SEN. JOHN McCAIN: I´m sorry, the Iranians are training
extremists, not al-Qaeda, not al-Qaeda. I´m sorry.


AMY GOODMAN: Senator McCain made the comment in Jordan, while on a
trip to the Middle East last week. While the media focused on the
gaffe, there has been little serious analysis of McCain´s foreign
policy. In fact, when it comes to the Middle East and establishing US
power in the world, McCain might even be more in line with
neoconservative thinking than President Bush. That´s the argument in
investigative reporter Robert Dreyfuss´s latest article in The Nation
magazine. It´s called "Hothead McCain." It outlines the Republican
presidential candidate´s foreign policy vision.

Robert Dreyfuss joins us now from Washington, D.C. Welcome to
Democracy Now!

ROBERT DREYFUSS: Thank you so much, Amy. It´s really great to be
here.

AMY GOODMAN: It´s good to have you with us. You cite Brookings
Institution analyst Ivo Daalder as saying, quote, "If you thought
George Bush was bad when it comes to the use of military force, wait
´til you see John McCain." Can you explain?

ROBERT DREYFUSS: Well, what I did in putting this piece together was
look at McCain´s own writing and speeches, his article in Foreign
Affairs, and I spoke to a number of his advisers, including Randy
Scheunemann, who is his chief foreign policy strategist. I spoke to
John Bolton. I spoke to Jim Woolsey. I spoke to a number of people
who are neoconservative in thought who have now clustered around the
McCain campaign and see his effort to become president as a way for
them-that is, for the neoconservatives-to return to the position of
power they had in the first Bush administration from 2001 to 2005.

McCain has an instinctive preference for using military power to
solve problems overseas. And when you couple that with a kind of
hotheaded temperament, with a kind of arrogance and really a tendency
to fly off the handle, I think we have a lot to fear, if he were ever
to have his finger on the button, because he´s a man who I think
would try to solve a lot of the very delicate foreign policy problems
that we have around the world by a show of force. And, of course, you
start with Iran in that context, but I think you could include many
other problems, as well...

Full article: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/26/a_century_in_iraq_replacing_un